Blind study QR code

I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories or wiping my fingerprints off guns I handle. But… the other day an obvious piece of junk mail arrived from the VA. This one was labeled the Million Veteran Baseline Survey. Now, keep in mind that we couldn’t even induce VA to study the correlation between jetguns and HCV transmission other than to get one of those idiotic “It’s plausible-just like getting hit by lightning.” responses out of them for the last decade. Therefore anytime VA gets into the business of “collecting” data on us and it’s purported to be “confidential and secure”, I start by examining the premise for it. And just so we aren’t confused here, the Veterans Health Administration computer is fully accessible by Veterans Benefits Administration raters and VA examiners. 

Let us begin. Each document has a QR code. That in itself is of no concern to me. What raises the hair on the back of my neck is reporting to the VAMC and having them do a friendly sit down, review your metrics and have you submit a blood sample. Somewhere along the line, you will be asked to produce your VA ID card. They are not going to simply let a horde of self-proclaimed Vets through the front door and start drawing blood without determining whether you were in the military. I’m sorry. It just doesn’t work that way at the VA. VA will know who you are long before the blood is drawn. Again, so much for anonymity.

On the introduction page, the questionnaire says by responding, you are doing this voluntarily by “consenting to participate and agreeing to have a one time MVP study visit scheduled”. Seems innocuous on its face. The cover letter addressed to you has the same QR code on it as the survey. But in the cover letter, the commitment is more nuanced. They ask that you “allow ongoing access to medical records by authorized MVP staff”. And in true mission creep, they also tell you by signing up, you “agree to future contact by MVP staff“. Nowhere on the baseline survey does it suggest or imply this is anything more than a one-time shot in the dark.

Some of you will remember that our august institution that watches out for us has a propensity to draw blood and be less than forthcoming about what’s swimming around in the test tube. Witness the large numbers of Vets who discovered in 2012 that they had been tested for HCV (and found positive) as early as 2006 and were never told. Do any of you believe that this is a research tool to better the lives of Vets? This is the same outfit that fought tooth and nail to avoid complying with the Nehmer Agent Orange class action suit and to this day still is recalcitrant and obdurate about complying with the rules and regulations relating to the “herbicide”.

The last sentence on the cover letter says “If we do not hear from you within the next few weeks, we may contact you again”. And again. And again until you comply.

So, what is in this little survey? First of all, let’s analyze this from the Mel Gibson standpoint to satisfy the criteria for a good conspiracy. Read through the questionnaire and you see the tenor of the questions is focused almost exclusively on Vets from the early sixties to the present. There are no questions about Lewisite which is prominently mentioned as a risk for military members in the latter part of WW2 or Korea. No talk of radiation exposure from Hiroshima or SHAD testing.  The brunt of the inquiry seems focused on Vietnam-era diseases rather than Southwest Asia ones. HCV, Parkinson’s, ALS, MS, Crohn’s, Peripheral neuropathy, IHD, mental disorders and prostate cancer. No questions about Camp Le Jeune and how many glasses of water a day you drank there…

Were the questionnaire more general and have more varied choices, I wouldn’t feel it was narrowly focused on one era of Vets. Obviously, the thing that stands out is harvesting all this info when we have never been able to persuade them to do a baseline study on HCV. I have watched with consternation the increasing numbers of claims and filings for HCV as more of you fall ill. It takes a long time for dense-minded men to acknowledge something is amiss. When they do, they go in expressing bravado to a doctor making his job infinitely more difficult. They also fail to link some of their ills to longstanding issues. I felt I just worked hard and this was the cause of my aches and general malaise. I’m not a doctor. Framing houses is not for the weak of heart. You don’t need to be muscular but it helps. Thus if you become inordinately tired from doing it day in and day out, it could be confused with simply being tired- even at 35. Vets are not a complaining bunch for the most part. The “gitterdone” Force is strong in us. We don’t go see a doctor until parts start falling off.

The questionnaire is framed such that a computer could digest this and come up with your name, rank, airspeed and tail number without a lot of conjecture. The second question is “What is your DOB?”  Add in that you are going to sit down with “MVP staff” and discuss your answers one-on-one with them and it adds up to an interesting fishing expedition. Mental health, income, queries about ethnicity, marital status, et cetera are disconcerting to say the least. An example is the query about your education. Were this to be disseminated (hell, any of this) by the VBA, a decision on your application for TDIU could easily be denied based on what you state as an income or how you view your current health. Your answers might somehow conflict with some you have submitted as evidence for a current claim. Without being forthcoming on where they get their information, VA can deny you based on what you have provided. So much for a double blind study where you remain anonymous. Ain’t going to happen, GI. For the record, there is no such thing as double-blind at the VA unless you are -quite literally-blind in both eyes. If your doctor calls you for a telephonic consultation, it’s recorded. Every visit to the VAMC is meticulously documented. I went to the Dental clinic for a teeth cleaning and at the end asked the lady not to put the flouride goop on my teeth as it wreaks havoc on my liver. Sure enough, in the VISTA records Colleen annotated “Pt. states he does not want fluoride prophylaxis. Says ‘it wrecks my liver’.” Why would they even bother to enter your exact comment?

Looking clearly at my biometrics asked for in this query, I would have no problem identifying myself based on the questions asked were I to have complete, unfettered access to the VHA computers. And who is asking for this information? Well, duh.

Lastly, the questionnaire proposes to query one million Vets. Last time I checked, there were 27 million of us. What about the other twenty six? For the record, there are less than one million of us genuine, red-clay-between-the-toes Vietnam Veterans left alive (670,000) so the aimpoint of this seems transparent. I know the 2010 census revealed that thirteen million of you red-blooded warmongers were there in Cu Chi and Qui Nhon raping and pillaging the villagers. Seems Stolen Valor is alive and well at the VFW now after three drinks and that it’s finally”okay” to be a Vietnam Veteran (Welcome Home, Bro). Perhaps this study was to designed to ascertain just exactly how many of you are are pulling the census takers’ leg.

The innocuous questionnaire:

I find it interesting that I received this. I would ask any of you who receive it to comment here as to what era you served in. If you do not mind terribly, please add if you served in country. I don’t see this as our nonadversarial, good old Veteran-friendly VAMC striving to provide a more pleasurable visit. Anything VA does anymore is suspect in my book.

P.S. Here’s the attached letter. Note the circled sentences.